What in Google's green earth could they be thinking? One of our readers, Jesse, wrote in to share this forum post from Google employee, Paul:

"Hey everyone, I have an update for you. We've decided to direct iPhone users to the standard mobile iGoogle page. We've found that people hit iGoogle from lots of different phones -- we want to ensure you'll all see the same version.

Most or all of your existing content should translate over to the standard mobile version. The only exception would be any gadgets that aren't compatible with most mobile browsers.

We've got several articles in our Help Center about the mobile experience on iGoogle, which you can find in our Help Center [link]."

Lowest common denominator much?

Jesse also let us know that Jailbreak users have a workaround: spoofing their browser via the Cydia app, Useragent Faker.

So is this Google playing it fair, playing favorites for Android (which still has functioning Gmail in its iGoogle mobile according to Christina, unlike the iPhone or BlackBerry), or just doing the mobile equivalent of re-coding all sites to standardize on the original version of Netscape?

Reader comments

Updated: Google Dumps iGoogle for iPhone: Huhbuwhy?!

iPhone gmail still works too. And I hear iGoogle is broken on Android too (confirmed in the linked thread). So I'm not really sure what that's supposed to be about.
Although I'm pretty annoyed about iGoogle, it's totally useless now. Looking for a new feed reader, but can't seem to find any good ones.

I've made extensive use of the iPhone-optimised Google homepage. I now have a mobile version which gives me access to about 9 threads (instead of the 200 or so I actually have), and the 'classic' view shows something like my traditional nonmobile homepage, but without any content and without the ability to navigate my tabs.
This is a glorious cock-up by Google, betraying just how like Microsoft they've become in their disregard of customers. It's a huge own-goal, no doubt driven by a desire to benefit their own Android OS (which I note they've managed to similarly damage in this act! Doh!).
So, we won't ask customers, we won't test the changes to ensure they deliver any degree of functionality, we'll simply disable what works and replace it with something that doesn't work and is intended to deliver significantly less functionality.
Geez, whatever happened to Google? They used to be so cool...

This stinks. This was my home page on my iPhone (at least it would be if iPhones had a home page). Now my iPhone's version looks the same as my daughter's WAP browser version. Nice way to lower the bar, Google.

This blows big time. My igoogle.com page is totally useless now. I can't switch between tabs and only about 5%-10% of my content actually shows up. I was just using this like an RSS reader, but now that's totally broken. Thanks google!

Googles spat its dummy out and of course will favour the G1, it seems the iphone and other mobile users have just had 1 stuck up them from google.
another example of the to pdog rules and everyone has to follow.http://myfreeiphone.co.uk/wordpress

Switched to iGoofle about a month ago and love having my Google bookmarks acessible from my homepage from any computer. It stinks that can't get to them from my iPhone as I completely stopped bookmarking in IE, Firefox and safari :-( Maybe Google plans to enhance the Google iPhone App instead?

So, is it possible to fully utilize all features of the facebook full site & igoogle in classic view without being redirected to mobile the version ?
If so, is there more than one way to accomplish this with the appropriate flash player ??